Credit and bank issued debit cards have been in wide spread use in business establishments. The majority of uses of these cards are referred to as attended uses. Personnel of the business establishment, or attendants, are required in order to process and complete a sale or transaction using a credit or bank issued debit card.
In the past, credit card transactions were made by imprinting information stamped on a credit card onto a multi part credit card receipt using a forced-contact device. It was a common business practice to contact a credit card company by telephone to verify the availability of credit on the card to ensure that there was sufficient credit to complete the transaction. If sufficient credit was available, the credit card company and/or credit card processor company provided an authorization number over the telephone which was manually printed onto the credit card receipt.
Magnetic strip technology has largely made the forced-contact devices unnecessary and has allowed for the expansion of credit card and bank issued debit card transactions. Using magnetic strip technology, information concerning a credit card (or bank issued debit card) owner's account is stored as magnetic information on a magnetic strip attached to a credit card or bank issued debit card. By passing the magnetic strip through a magnetic card reader the information about an individual's credit card (or bank issued debit card) account can be read. The information can then be transmitted over telephone lines to the credit card company (or other authorization service) to obtain an authorization for a particular credit card transaction. Imprints of credit card information onto a receipt using a forced-contact device is no longer necessary, as magnetic information is output to a printer which outputs credit card (or bank issued debit card) information (such as the credit card account number or bank issued debit card number) and the transaction information (such as amount, date and store where purchase was made) onto a receipt for the credit card owner.
Various self-service devices using credit cards and bank issued debit cards have been appearing in the marketplace. Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) have allowed users to deposit, withdraw and transfer funds to and from bank accounts. Originally ATMs were only used with bank issued debit cards. It is now possible to use credit cards for transactions, such as withdrawals, at ATMs (this may be more accurately described as a loan against an available credit line). Neither credit cards or bank issued debit cards contain information about account content. Account content is stored on the computer of a credit card company or bank. This information is accessed with the credit card or bank issued debit card.
In the vending field, credit cards and bank issued debit cards can be used directly at the pumps at self-service gas stations for dispensing gasoline. Although self-service, this type of vend is still referred to as an attended vend (or attended transaction), as an operator must always be on duty at the gas station. Credit cards can also be used on airplanes for personal telephone calls. This use is also considered an attended transaction as flight attendants are available, as well as a telephone operator for assistance, collect calls, information, etc..
Vending machines, such as copy machines, are often used in a completely unattended state. After normal working hours in libraries, office buildings, post office, court houses or copy facilities, users can still operate a copy machine using either coins, cash or private debit cards. Private debit cards are often referred to as "stored value cards" or "prepaid cards". Prepaid cards differ from bank issued debit cards in that prepaid cards have a cash value encoded on the card's magnetic strip. The prepaid card does not require a connection to a database, as do bank issued debit cards and credit cards, to determine if a transaction is within an available credit limit (for a credit card) or within an available balance (for a bank issued debit card). Several problems or inefficiencies can occur, however, with the use of coin/cash operated or prepaid card operated machines.
Coin operated machines require that a user have sufficient change for the number of copies the user is reproducing. The user may not be aware before arriving at the copy facility how many copies are necessary or the cost per copy. Further, for large copy jobs, carrying a sufficient amount of change is burdensome both by the weight and space taken up by the coins and the need to acquire the coins from a bank or other financial institution. This can also pose security problems for a user late at night in a library, for example. Although coin changers are often found in the vicinity of coin operated vending machines, coin changers can also run out of change causing problems during unattended use. There is a lack of accountability, as there is no receipt for transactions.
From an operator's perspective, problems with coin operated vending machines include vandalism, theft, inaccurate counting/reporting, collection and depositing. Prepaid card operated vending machines, such as copy machines, require an inventory of cards (sometimes referred to as "copy cards") as well as equipment to encode the prepaid cards. This requires either an operator to carry out the encoding on the magnetic card (requiring equipment to both read from and write to the card) or a machine analogous to a change machine for dispensing prepaid cards and/or converting cash value to a prepaid card. During unattended use, both of these means for obtaining a prepaid card may be inoperable. In the case of a prepaid card dispensing machine, sufficient change or cash must still be carried by the user. A further problem occurs when a user consumes the available purchasing power on a copy card (the prepaid amount is zero or below the cost of a copy). When this occurs, the user must obtain a new prepaid card or purchase additional purchasing power for the existing card.
Further, generally, both coin and prepaid card operated vending machines do not-provide transaction information concerning the type of transaction, location duration, time and other items or information concerning the various transactions. This information can prove useful to the operator of the vending machine.
Over the years, unattended self-service copy vending equipment has been improved with the addition of expanded copier-based features, services and reproduction quality. The improvements for unattended transactions have relied predominantly on third party companies to provide the necessary equipment that would enable the vending machines to accept money and prepaid cards as a method of payment for unattended services (also referred to as "pay as needed" services). With a number of different technologies and a lack of an industry standard, interfaces among the manufacturers of vending machines, even among many inter-company models, may not be compatible. This has required different interfaces/wiring schemes for coin mechanisms or different coin mechanisms for attachment to different vending machines. As a result, not all features of a copy machine may be available to a user or separately charged by a copy service provider. For example, a coin operated copy machine typically does not charge a different amount for copying onto larger paper, such as 11".times.14" paper or A4 paper.
The coin mechanism's primary function is to accept standard coins and/or make correct change to enable the correct operation of a copy vending machine. Another problem with coin mechanisms is that all transactions must default to the lowest common coin accepted, which is typically a nickel. Although an attended copy machine or prepaid card operated copy machine can change other monetary increments for a transaction, a coin operated vending machine in either attended or unattended states, must default to the lowest common coin accepted by the machine. Hence all pricing increments must be made in multiples of $0.05 (5 cents).
Providing computers for users can be very expensive for institutions such as universities. Typically, universities purchased or leased computers and printers and stationed them in a computer center for students and faculty to use. The cost of equipment makes it prohibitive to add peripheral devices. Printers are usually shared among several computers. If not networked, one computer may be dedicated for printing. This requires a user to first copy a file to disk, then carry the disk to the dedicated print computer to print the file. Other types of peripheral devices such as scanners and color printers, are even less available in these computer centers largely because of price. In addition, the inability to monitor long-distance phone access and on-line service charges makes it prohibitive to allow data communication access to all of the computers in a computer center. Unmonitored telephone access could run up large telephone bills for long distance calls.
Facilitating such access and use by an automated payment system, in effect operating computers as vending machines with payment by credit card, would be of great advantage as compared to present systems. The possible applications for such pay as you go computer use includes the operation of a computer, access to various on-line services such as databases and bulletin boards, other types of modem communications, scanning of documents and printing. Although not typically referred to as an "on-line service", information stored on compact discs (CDs) can be thought of as similar to on-line services in that a CD contains data stored in a database. Thus, a user's searching can be monitored on a time, per search, per database or per item (does not include per input and/or output) basis.
Users of microfilm and microfiche readers would also benefit from a credit card/bank issued debit card operated machine. Like copy machines and computers, microfilm and microfiche readers could then be made available for pay as needed, cashless unattended use.
The same limitations causing coin/cash operation and prepaid card operation problems/inefficiencies which appear in current vending machines would also be present with these computer/microfilm/microfiche uses.